Fly V Australia kicks off US campaign in style

The Fly V Australia team launched their 2010 season campaign in style on Friday night with Australian dignitaries, shapely flight attendants and a packed ballroom of invitation-only guests gathering with team sponsors and media. The occasion took place at the posh Montage hotel in Beverly Hills, California and enforced the Australian team's agressive plan to one day soon race in Europe.

The Honorable Peter Beattie, Queensland's Trade Commissioner, was on hand to help introduce 10 of the team’s 15 riders, as well as Fly V Australia team Owner Chris White, Technical Director Ed Beamon and the team’s management and staff. Several of the Fly V Australia red, white and black De Rosa bicycles were on display as the backdrop for the ceremony.

White beamed with pride as he told the audience gathered in the hotel’s rooftop restaurant that, in its second-year, the Australian-registered team was doing things “a bit differently” to reach the sport's highest level. Amongst the team's lofty goals are to become a ProTour level team and to one day compete in the sport’s biggest event, the Tour de France.

“We haven’t gone straight to Europe. We’re going to Europe via America,” White said. ”We see America as the doorway to Europe and great events like the Amgen Tour of California as the entryway into the Grand Tours.”

Among the 15 riders on Fly V Australia are ten Australians, two South Africans and one rider each from Canada, Italy and the United States. Ten of the team's fifteen riders were on hand Friday, and introduced to the crowd with by the stunning V Australia “cabin crew” attendants. Alessandro Bazzana, Jonathan Cantwell, Jai Crawford, Ben Day, Charles Dionne, Aaron Kemps, Darren Lill, Bernard Sulzberger, David Tanner and Phil Zajicek were the center attraction for the night's festivities.

Missing out on the presentation were Hayden Brooks, Ben Kersten and Jay Thomson who were busy racing their bikes, and David Kemp and Darren Rolfe, both sprinting down the aisle of the ladder's wedding. Director Sportif Henk Vogels was also home celebrating the recent birth of his fourth child.

White said the team exudes the true meaning of “mateship” – a word printed inside the collar of the team’s Santini supplied team kits.

“Mateship is pulling at the front of the bunch for hours on end so that you can deliver a race win,” White said. “It is making sure your mate has enough water to finish the stage. It is making sure all the little things are done that you might not otherwise want to do.”

In 2009 the Fly V Australia team won 94 races. The team’s US campaign begins March 19 at the San Dimas Stage Race and continues through September. The team anticipates participation in some of the country's biggest events including the Amgen Tour of California, the SRAM Tour of the Gila, the Tour de Beauce in Canada and the International Classic in Philadelphia.

The Fly V Australia also hopes to gain invites to late-season European races like the Tour of Ireland and the Tour of Britain, before resuming its Australian program with the Tour of Tasmania, the Sun Tour and the Australian criterium series in November and December.